West Indies chased 250 against India in Ranchi on Friday night with nine balls to spare, and the five-match T20I series is now level at 1-1. Captain Shai Hope finished on 102 not out from 45 balls, and the six off Axar Patel that brought up his hundred also won the match. West Indies reached 252/4 in 18.3 overs, the second-highest successful chase in T20I history, behind only South Africa’s 259 against West Indies at Centurion in 2023, as Sportstar’s record list shows.

It undid an Indian innings that had already broken a record of its own. Sanju Samson’s 41-ball 82 led India to 249/5, which The Times of India reports is India’s highest T20I total against West Indies, passing 244/4 at Lauderhill in 2016. Three days after Shreyas Iyer’s 42-ball hundred won the opener in Lucknow, India lost by six wickets.

Scorecard summary

• Result: West Indies won by 6 wickets (with 9 balls remaining)
• Venue and date: JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi, Friday 9 October 2026
• Toss: West Indies, elected to field
• India: 249/5 in 20 overs (Sanju Samson 82 off 41, Tilak Varma 44* off 18, Ishan Kishan 43 off 22, Shreyas Iyer 40 off 18; Roston Chase 3/24, Shamar Springer 2/64)
• West Indies: 252/4 in 18.3 overs (Shai Hope 102* off 45, Sherfane Rutherford 84 off 37, Romario Shepherd 34* off 13; Mayank Yadav 3/36, Kuldeep Yadav 1/53)
• Series: five-match series level 1-1
• Next: 3rd T20I, Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore, Sunday 11 October, 7 pm IST

Mayank Yadav’s two wickets in two balls

For three balls the chase looked over before it began. Mayank Yadav, retained ahead of Prince Yadav after a poor game in Lucknow, banged in a 143kph short ball to Kamil Pooran, whose pull went high to square leg, where substitute fielder Ravi Bishnoi took the catch. Next ball, a 144kph short delivery cramped Shimron Hetmyer, who chopped it onto his middle stump for a golden duck. West Indies were 5/2.

Hope and Rovman Powell did not slow down to rebuild. Hope took Axar for a four and two sixes in the fourth over, Powell hit Arshdeep Singh for two fours in the fifth, and the pair added 53 before Mayank came back for a third straight over and knocked out Powell’s off stump with a ball clocked at 149.5kph. Powell made 24 off 13. Even so, West Indies ended the powerplay on 72/3, seven runs short of India’s 79/1 at the same stage, according to the ESPNcricinfo scorecard.

Mayank finished with 3/36 from three overs. India’s other five bowlers took one wicket between them.

Hope and Rutherford add 120 for the fourth wicket

Sherfane Rutherford walked in at 58/3 in the sixth over and hit his first five balls for two fours and a six. From there he and Hope put on 120 in 54 balls. ESPNcricinfo’s match centre lists it as West Indies’ highest fourth-wicket stand in T20Is, beating the 103 that Dwayne Bravo and Hetmyer put on.

Hope reached fifty off 24 balls with his second six in an over from Shivam Dube. At the halfway mark West Indies were 122/3, five runs behind India’s 127/1 at ten overs. Rutherford was on 39, and according to Mint’s over-by-over coverage, Mayank had just dropped a simple chance from him at short fine leg off the last ball of the tenth over.

Rutherford’s fifty came off 24 balls, with a six over long-off off Axar, in a 23-run 12th over. He went on to 84 off 37 balls, with seven fours and seven sixes, before Kuldeep Yadav fired one wide of off stump first ball of the 15th over and Rutherford’s thin edge went to Samson. West Indies were 178/4, needing 72 from 35 balls.

“The mindset was clear. We know there’s a lot of runs on the board. It was a good wicket,” Rutherford said after the match, in comments carried by ESPNcricinfo’s commentary. “Intent doesn’t mean reckless, but good position and it gives you the best chance of capitalizing on bad balls.” On his form this year he added: “I made a promise to myself that I want to be the best player in T20.”

Kuldeep and Axar go for 116 in 7.3 overs

The wicket did not slow West Indies. Romario Shepherd came in and Hope took over the hitting. The 17th over, Kuldeep’s last, went for 24: Hope hit the first two balls for straight sixes, Shepherd went down on one knee and hacked a third over cow corner, and a slap past point finished it. The equation fell from 51 off 24 balls to 27 off 18.

Arshdeep had kept the 14th over to eight runs with yorkers, but his final over, the 18th, cost 17. Shepherd flicked a knee-high full toss over deep midwicket for six and followed it with two fours. Needing ten from 12, Hope swept Axar’s first ball of the 19th over deep midwicket for six, defended one, then sent a full ball over wide long-on to reach 100 off 45 balls and end the match. Mint describes it as his second T20I century, following back-to-back hundreds in the ODI series.

Kuldeep finished with 1/53 from four overs and Axar with 0/63 from 3.3, 116 runs between them. West Indies hit 20 sixes and 21 fours, worth 204 runs. Shepherd ended on 34 not out from 13 balls. The 501 runs scored across both innings make up the highest match aggregate in T20Is between India and West Indies, according to ESPNcricinfo.

The previous highest target overhauled against India in T20Is was 223, by Australia in Guwahati in 2023, Sportstar notes. Hindustan Times also calls this the highest successful run-chase against India in T20Is. Before this match, India had won ten T20Is in a row.

Samson’s 82 and India’s 249/5

India’s innings had been about Samson. His last four T20I innings before Friday read 2, 7, 9 and 11, and the selection question we looked at before this game, Samson’s poor run against Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s claim, went the way of the incumbent. Sooryavanshi did not play.

Samson rode his luck. Kamil Pooran dropped him at cover on 6 off Akeal Hosein, and Mint reports a second drop later in the powerplay. Hosein then overstepped, and Samson hit the free hit over long-on for six. He took 22 off Hosein in the fifth over and reached fifty off 21 balls, which TOI and Hindustan Times both record as matching Virat Kohli for the joint-fastest T20I fifty by an Indian against West Indies.

Abhishek Sharma made 20 off 12 before Roston Chase had him caught at mid-on by Gudakesh Motie in the fourth over. Ishan Kishan, the local boy, made 43 off 22, and he and Samson put on 97 for the second wicket. Samson fell for 82 off 41 balls, with nine fours and four sixes, top-edging a short ball from Shamar Springer to Pooran at square third man in the 15th over.

India then added 87 runs in the last 33 balls. Iyer made 40 off 18 and Tilak Varma 44 not out off 18, including three sixes in a row off Springer in the 20th over. Iyer was caught by Hetmyer at deep midwicket off the penultimate ball, and Naman Dhir hit his only ball for four.

Roston Chase concedes 24 from four overs

In a match with 501 runs, one bowler went at six an over. Chase took 3/24 from his four overs of off-spin, with ten dot balls. After Abhishek, he bowled Kishan first ball of the 12th over with a ball that skidded under a slap through the off side, then had Shivam Dube for 7 in the 14th over, an inside edge from a flat ball outside off deflecting onto the stumps. India went from 139/1 to 162/4 in 20 balls, three of the wickets falling to Chase and Springer.

The rest of the attack went for plenty. Springer conceded 64 from his four overs, Shepherd 47 from 3.4 overs, which included four wides in one over, and Hosein 46 from three. Chase was the only West Indies bowler to concede fewer than ten an over.

What the result means for the series

With three matches left, the series is open again. The third T20I is at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore on Sunday 11 October, starting at 7 pm IST, according to the ESPNcricinfo fixture page. India last lost a series at home in 2019, ESPNcricinfo noted before Friday’s game.

India conceded 252 in 18.3 overs, and their squad for this series has two bowlers who did not play in Ranchi: Bishnoi, who took Friday’s first catch as a substitute, and Prince Yadav. The batting is in better shape: every one of India’s top six except Dube scored at better than a run a ball, and five of them made 20 or more. After this series comes a T20I tour of New Zealand, for which Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been recalled.

West Indies arrive in Indore with Hope’s run of form intact and a chase record that only South Africa have beaten. For more on the series, follow our India cricket and cricket coverage. The third T20I starts at 7 pm IST on Sunday in Indore, and the winner there goes 2-1 up with two matches to play.

Featured image: Shai Hope. Photo: Dave Morton / Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Mark 1.0

Sources: ESPNcricinfo scorecard, match centre and fixture pages; The Times of India; Mint; Sportstar; Hindustan Times.